reply to post by Gools
Well, it gives an insight into the neurobiological processes underlying this. I wouldn't push the inference too far though, desensitisation would
suggest a lowering of emotional response, this seems to more a case of disinhibiting negative emotions.
I'd have to read the paper, but it may just be a case of the deactivation of the OFC allowing the amygdala greater activation (that is, enabling more
fear/anger or reassessing the motivational characteristics of the stimuli). These two brain areas appear to work in concert - with the higher
executive frontal mechanism modulating the more core emotional processes of the amygdala.
The lateral OFC is like a filtering mechanism to emotions, controlling and inhibting relevant and irrelevant emotion processed in lower subcortical
areas of the brain.
Off to have a read...
ABE: They showed reduced right lOFC, reduced interacton between the OFC and amygdala, more tendency for 'reactive aggression', and SMA
(supplementary motor area - readiness to act) activity with increasing exposure to violent stimuli, but didn't report sole amygdala changes.
Would have been interesting. As I would have thought the amygdala would become more activated if they were tending towards being aggressive (i.e.,
readiness to act aggressively - reactive aggression). Might have been due to the methodology, oh well.
PloS article - Kelly, Grinband, Hirsch (2007)
[edit on 6-12-2007 by melatonin]
The yellow area of the brain is the right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, or right ltOFC, which has been previously associated with decreased control over a variety of behaviors, including reactive aggression. The first graph illustrates that as the number of violent movies watched increased, the right ltOFC activity diminished. The second graph shows that when subjects watched the non-violent control clips, there were no systematic changes in the activation of this area.
